The Truth About The Wildness
by Dorku No Renkinjutsushi
Summary: There's a feral peace in their wildness. A 20 Truths about Clan Inuzuka


**_20 Truths Inuzuka Style_**  
**Title:** 20 Things The Wildness Can Teach You  
**Character/Group/Pairing:** Inuzuka Clan  
**Author:** Dorku no Renkinjutsushi  
**Warnings/Disclaimer/Summary:** As with anything I write, there will be yaoi or hints towards it. _Naruto_ is the property of Kishimoto Masashi, and I promised Kishimoto-sensei that his babies would be returned in one piece. (I'm such a horrible, awful liar. How do I live with myself? XD)

* * *

1. For years—many, many years, before the founding of Konoha, even—Clan Inuzuka has had an alpha bitch. Occasionally, she will allow an alpha male to rule with her, but she is always the first one with the power. Tsume learnt everything she would need to know about power and exercising it cautiously from her mother, and she has passed it on to Hana.

She has yet to realise that Hana's begun to pass it on to someone else.

2. That having been stated, she's not sure she should have. For one thing, Hana is much more interested in being a veterinarian than a fighter. The person in control of the Inuzuka clan has to be able to fight and argue and debate and, occasionally, just assert more power than anyone else. Tsume's not entirely one-hundred percent sure that Hana can do that.

This scares her. Tradition is tradition for a reason, right?

3. It's for that reason that Tsume has begun to teach her son everything a leader must know. She's fairly certain he can handle it, even if he is a man. He can fight. He's loud enough to be heard when he wants to be. Everyone (and she does mean _everyone_…she's seen the way that little Hyuuga girl watches her son) likes him.

This worries her a little. Some of them like him too much.

4. Kiba really is the best person to rule Clan Inuzuka when his mother dies or retires. Still, there are things he needs to learn. For example, Tsume's driving herself to the edge of insanity trying to teach him to be _quiet_ occasionally. (_Not everything's a contest of volume, Kiba!_)

Tsume whines to her brothers that she'll be bald by the end of the year, if Kiba doesn't stop making her rip her hair out.

5. Still, there is some question as to whether or not Clan Inuzuka will accept an alpha male. It's tradition that the women rule, and many have believed for years that Hana will be following her mother to the head of the clan.

Only Tsume's mother knows different, and she doesn't tell anyone. Not even Tsume.

6. Contrary to popular notion, the Inuzuka are probably the closest-knit of all the clans in Konoha. Their fighting is a sign of love, something most people cannot recognise. The instructors at the Academy sought to keep the two Inuzuka in classes that never met, believing that the rivalry that would erupt might endanger other students. Only one person ever saw that Inuzuka Hana is Kiba's strongest protector, loudest supporter, staunchest ally, best friend, and first love.

Tsume is very grateful that Kiba was taught by Umino Iruka. He, at least, understood her children.

7. She recognised him the day he came into the office of the Inuzuka clan and introduced himself as Kiba's instructor. She recognised him because of his father—they were almost identical. And she remembered his father well. After all, it was his father who had come to their door at two in the morning and informed seventeen-year-old Tsume, nineteen-year-old Soubi, and their mother, forty-six-year-old Inuko that Osin—beautiful, strong, seventeen-year-old Osin—was dead.

Yes, Tsume recognised the face of the man who had destroyed her entire world.

8. Osin's death made Tsume the strong woman she is today. He had been her companion her entire life, her twin, her double. Osin was to Tsume what Hana is to Kiba. The others on Osin's team—Namiashi Raidou, Kokoreri Atsumana, and Umino Ryuusa—never told her how Osin died, but Tsume knows. She knows he was torn limb from limb, dismembered, tortured before he was finally killed.

Somehow, knowing her brother allowed himself to put through hell so that other might live gives Tsume the strength to keep going, even though it means crying at the tombstones of both of her brothers occasionally.

9. She hopes that Hana and Kiba will never have to go through the same thing. Even when they were little, little children Tsume could tell that they would grow up to be as close as she and Osin, even though they had five years between them. Hana beat up the kids who tried to pick on the runt of the Inuzuka family. She tutored him privately so that he would be able to keep up with the other students, despite his dyslexia. Kiba taught her to act normal, forced her to act human so that no one could tell she had autism. He was one of the few people who understood the way Hana's mind worked—one of the few people who could figure out what life was like for a high-functioning autistic girl.

They were each other's first loves—the only ones who understood the other for a long, long time.

10. Of course, first loves are followed by seconds and thirds and fourths. Following the natural order of the world, Hana fell in love with Uchiha Itachi. Then she reached that age where, ew, boys had cooties. Yuck! (Privately, Tsume was glad. The entire Uchiha clan scared her). Then, of course, she got over that and went right back to breaking the hearts of every boy in Konoha. And it started with the eldest of the Aburame boys, Goki.

_That_ really worried Tsume. Even a mention of the Aburame clan was enough to make the Inuzuka twitch.

11. Kiba, being Kiba and therefore contrary and annoying, also fell in love immediately upon entering puberty. Tsume was glad, though. She wouldn't have to worry about him the same way she had worried about Hana going into heat. All she had to worry about was Akamaru chasing after some bitch in heat and Kiba following. Kiba then mentioned something about 'that hot Aburame' and she started worrying again. Aburame Buriko was young…she was thirteen to Kiba's fifteen!

Of course, then she walked in on him and Shino, and realised two things. One, she probably needn't have worried about him chasing women. Two, it was about time Kiba move out to the adolescent cabins.

12. Hana knew her brother was gay before he did. Rather, she could accept that her brother was gay before he could. It was hard to miss, really. For one, Kiba still slept in the main house—in the children's quarters—because he had yet to acknowledge a bitch in heat. For two, she heard from her cousin Eto's newest breeder, Amemi, that she'd heard from Tsudan who'd heard from Kuromaru who'd heard from Akamaru that Kiba often woke in the middle of the night on mission with a damp bedroll.

Three, on the mission she'd gone on with Kiba and his team, she'd heard him talking in his sleep. And unless that little Hyuuga girl's name was Shino…

13. But she didn't push him on it. Hana kept her opinions to herself and to her dogs (the ones she knew wouldn't spread the gossip). She didn't tell anyone that she knew her baby brother lusted after her boyfriend's little brother. Of course, one day Goki told her that he'd walked in on Shino masturbating with Kiba's name on his lips, and it took all of Hana's carefully-crafted self-control not to tell Kiba.

When he came into her room three nights later, in tears because he thought he was in love with his teammate and he just didn't know what to do, Hana spilled it all.

14. Kiba was surprised his sister told him all that. She's generally very, very good at keeping secrets. Most of them are harmless, like the ones about who likes who and who said what. Some of them concern him (like the fact that he can't truly read or count). Some concern Tsume (like the fact that Kiba was going to be a big brother, and then their father died. The foetus was only two months old.) She knows a few dangerous ones, too.

Hana's never told anyone that she was almost a mother. There's an advantage to knowing every natural abortificant in the region, and she knew that the Aburame wouldn't accept their son having a bastard child with an Inuzuka.

15. What Hana doesn't know is that Tsume knew. She knew in the same way that mothers always know, especially when something is wrong. She smelled the change in Hana's scent that said she was pregnant before Hana did, and she smelled the ginger on her that night. She said nothing, though.

Sometimes the most important part of growing up is knowing when you're not grown up enough.

16. Tsume never said anything to Hana about that incident because she believes her children are wise enough to make their own decisions. There have been very few times when Tsume has interfered in her children's lives, something that has lead to some saying that they are spoiled. Still, when she found out from one of her co-workers that Kiba was applying for the Special Forces, she interfered.

She refuses to let her son throw his life away like that just because his boyfriend isn't allowed to see him anymore.

17. The other reason Tsume refuses to let anyone in her clan enter the Special Forces is that she spent part of her own life there, and she thinks it's probably the worst thing she could have done. There is nothing more damaging to the human psyche than being a trained whore, selling your soul and body to the night. When her mother was alpha bitch, there were almost thirty Inuzuka in the elite force.

There's a very important reason for this. The Inuzuka are one of the only clans that understand the pure sensuality of the human body—and who admit to it—and it makes them dreadfully great clubbers.

18. The Inuzuka are proud of who they are, even if the other clans disapprove of them. They're comfortable in their own skins, aware of who they are inside and out. They love with all of their hearts, they care with all of their souls, and this is the glue that binds them together.

Inside, they know nothing can ever tear them apart.

19. The knowledge that they are a family woven together is what gives them the strength to be so different. Every single member of the clan knows that they have a family that will accept them, that they have a home to return to. If anyone is angry with anyone else, they are loud about it and it is done quickly. Everyone knows everyone else's business, and nobody cares. There's an odd peace in their feral wildness.

Sometimes, Kiba thinks it's the presence of this safety net that has kept him sane all these years. Other times, he thinks it's what's driving him crazy.

20. Tsume's mother, as clan elder, knows everything. She knows that in three years, Kiba will be the Inuzuka's first ever alpha male. She knows that the Aburame elders will finally break down and agree to let Goki marry Hana someday. She knows that on that day, Shino will come running back to his lover. She knows that someday she'll be dead and it'll be her youngest child, her only living child, who will sit in front of the fire and know absolutely everything.

After all, there's no fooling the nose of a dog mistress.


End file.
